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A video and an image claiming to show Israeli spies being publicly executed in Iran.
Video found to be BTS footage of 2024 Iranian film; viral image dates back to 2018, shared by meme pages.
Amid reports that Iran has executed at least six men convicted of spying for Israel and arrested 700 in a nationwide espionage crackdown, a couple of visuals are going viral claiming to show the alleged executions. While one video purportedly shows a spy for Israeli intelligence agency Mossad being publicly hanged, the other image claims to show Iran sending an agent working for Israel on a missile bound for Tel Aviv.
The archived versions of the posts can be seen here and here, which have clocked over 5.6 million views so far.
Newschecker did not find either of the viral visuals in the extensive media coverage of the 12-day Iran-Israel conflict and the consequent rounding up of residents by the Islamic Republic on suspicion of treachery, with six reportedly executed in fast-tracked trials.
Newschecker ran a reverse image search of keyframes of the 47-second video, which led us to a longer version of the same clip on Youtube, dated April 16, 2024, well before the recent conflict. It was uploaded by Alireza Donyadideh, whose bio describes himself as a “stuntman, action scene designer and adrenaline junkie.”
“Hanging the actor backstage #actor #hanging #stunt #ropeaccess #cinema #action #police #iran,” read the title of the video, while the description stated in Persian: “Behind the scenes of the movie Stunt Designer: Alireza Donyadideh”.
Taking a cue, we ran a relevant keyword search, following which we found the viral clip uploaded on Instagram by @alidonya021 (Alireza Donyadide) on January 12, 2025. “Behind the scenes of the execution of the film Bodiless,” read the post, translated from Persian.
A further search led us to the same film uploaded on Youtube on May 8, 2025, where we found a frame similar to the viral video at the 05:17 mark, which confirmed that it was behind-the-scenes (BTS) footage of an Iranian movie, “Bi Badan”, or “Bodiless”, released in 2024
Newschecker noticed that multiple users pointed out in the replies to the viral post that the image was an old meme. We then ran a reverse image search, which led us to the same image posted on Reddit on June 4, 2018, over seven years ago. We noticed that the subreddit (r/cursedimages) is dedicated to posts intended as dark humour.
Similar meme pages sharing the image, dating back to 2018, can be seen here and here. Although we could not yet independently verify the origin of the image, we can confirm that it is not related to the recent Iran-Israel conflict, which began on June 14, 2025 and ended on June 25, 2025.
Also Read: Old, Unrelated Visuals Of Showing Cache of Arms Falsely Linked To Recent Raid In Lucknow
Viral visuals claiming to show Iran executing Israeli spies were found to be BTS footage of Iranian film and an image from 2018.
Sources
Youtube video, Alireza Donyadideh, April 16, 2024
Reddit post, June 4, 2018
False
Runjay Kumar
July 8, 2025
Runjay Kumar
July 9, 2025
Vasudha Beri
July 9, 2025
